NEW DELHI: Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will launch the Swavalamban Scheme in West Bengal's Murshidabad district on Sunday. As per the scheme, the Centre will contribute Rs 1,000 a year to each New Pension Scheme (NPS) account opened in the current year. The contribution will be made till 2013-14. To be eligible, a person will have to make a minimum contribution of Rs 1,000 and maximum contribution of Rs 12,000 per annum. The announcement comes following a lacklustre response to the NPS, where very few subscribers came forward to avail of the pension scheme. According the ...

Behrampore (WB) (PTI): Defending the Centre's decision to deploy paramilitary forces in Lalgarh, Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Tuesday said the Centre could not sit idle when lives of people were in danger and the state government failed to reopen Lalgarh police station."The state government failed to reopen Lalgarh police station which remained closed for seven months, and lives of policemen and people were affected by regular violence. Under these circumstances the Centre cannot sit idle," Mukherjee told reporters here endorsing the Centre's action for the second time in two ...

NEW DELHI:
Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters on Tuesday that Pakistan must "take courage in both hands" to tackle terrorism and appealed to the international community to act to address the "biggest menace in the world today".
"The terrorism infrastructure facilities available in Pakistan must be completely dismantled and the perpetrators brought to justice, otherwise perpetration of these types of incidents will take place,” he said while reacting to Tuesday’s attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore:
Drawing parallels between the Mumbai terror ...